Aw Snaps!

Posted on May 24, 2013 by realtimefarms

Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!

Sparr’s Greenhouse – Plymouth, MI
at Ann Arbor Farmers Market – Ann Arbor, MI

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Aw Snaps!

Posted on May 17, 2013 by realtimefarms

Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!

Truelove Farms – Morris, CT

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Farm Beginnings: We Farm because Seeds Grow

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Corinna

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of farming trees for the wood stove. Today she speaks to why she farms.

A few weeks ago I gently tucked tiny black and silver specks into wet soil. I placed plastic covers over the soil, put the flats under a sunlamp on the radiator and waited. The soil was very wet. I did not disturb the flats at all, water condensed on the inside of the mini plastic greenhouses.

Four weeks later there is a green carpet of tender strong dynamic life reaching upwards, unfurling new leaves with the courage of a new day.

The flecks of seeds GREW!!

The seeds GREW!!

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Aw Snaps!

Posted on May 10, 2013 by realtimefarms

Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!

Our Table – Sherwood, OR

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Farm Beginnings: Farming Trees for the Wood Stove

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Corinna
Splitting wood as people have done for hundreds of years.

Splitting wood as people have done for hundreds of years.

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of inoculating logs with fungus plugs. Today she speaks of farming trees and splitting firewood.

When I think of farming, I think of neat rows of greens interspersed with chickens and a cow in a field or endless rows of corn – but as you know, one can “farm” many things: honey, Christmas trees, apricots, maple syrup, hickory nuts, mushrooms, etc. As I become more and more excited about perennial cultivation instead of annual plantings (my bedside table is currently groaning under the two-volume tome Edible Forest Gardens), I am beginning to shift my timeline for what farming can encompass – like the farming of trees.

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Aw Snaps!

Posted on May 3, 2013 by realtimefarms

Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!

Ferma – Sums’ka oblast, Ukraine

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Let Transition Challenge Month Begin!!

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Corinna

Transition-Challenge-LogoTransition Challenge Month, yup. Brought to you by the Transition United States, yup. Clearer now?

Until I was asked to teach a Backyard Chicken class for a Reskilling Festival co-hosted by Transition Ann Arbor, I did not know either. Nor had I heard the phrases “peak oil” or “energy descent.” But in my humble opinion, the Transition movement is awesome.

Awesome in the sense I am in awe.  Committed people walking the walk – building communities through reducing local energy use, reusing materials for building, reducing reliance on new items, educating a new generation in such practices, creating local currency, and (of course) focusing on the role of food (they LOVE local food).

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Farm Beginnings: Inoculating Logs with Mushrooms

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Corinna
The spawn saturated plugs fit snugly into the drilled holes.

The spawn saturated plugs fit snugly into the drilled holes.

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of mulch. Today she speaks of inoculating logs with fungus plugs.

Inoculating logs with mushrooms is like playing Wack-a-Mole, immensely satisfying on a visceral level. Also on a visceral level, like so many of perks that have to do with working to grow your own food, at the end of the day there are glorious mushrooms to eat! (Or in 9-12 months.)

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Aw Snaps!

Posted on April 26, 2013 by realtimefarms

Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!

Lodge Ranch Organics – Pala, CA

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Farm Beginnings: Chipping Mulch

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Corinna

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of clearing the land of trees. Today she speaks to chipping your own mulch.

I learned the difference between “gym fit” and “farm fit” this weekend. I am barely gym fit and I am nowhere near farm fit.

I am standing on top of the brush pile at the beginning of the weekend.

Standing on top of the brush pile at the beginning of the weekend.

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